Felicia's PJK Tourney A Huge Success (for Underdogs)Last night was the first of the weekly Poker Journal Keepers at Planet Poker organized by Felicia. Felicia and Planet Poker get the booby prizes, and Mean Gene is my new hero.
Felicia deserves extra special poker props for having personally worked with everyone to make sure they got signed up (including yours truly, whose problem was he hadn’t funded his account yet!). She also gets the booby prize for being first knocked out (her QQ got “cracked” by AA in the first or second hand of the game).
Other than stealing the blinds once, I only played two hands before getting knocked out. The first was a pre-flop raise by Pauly to which everyone folded. Knowing Pauly as I do, and holding A8s in one of the blinds, I called the raise. Flop was x-8-x, I check, and Pauly, no doubt concerned by my call, makes a modest bet. I call. Turn = 8. Gotcha, Pauly! Check, $200 bet, $600 raise, pause, call. The river comes and brings a possible flush (but not mine). I check, Pauly checks back. 888 wins, Pauly mucks. My guess is Pauly had something like Q7o.
The only other hand I played to showdown was spectacular. I’m sitting with AQs in last position, and Pauly goes all-in with his short stack (see hand above). I call, figuring him for—at best—Ax. Mean Gene also calls, which gets me worried. The flop comes 7 - 2 - A. I figure I’ve got Pauly dead to rights, and Mean Gene doesn’t have Aces or AK, so I’m golden. I bet into Gene to get him out, but he goes all in, typing something like “I’ve got to do it”. It occured to me that he might have the hammer, but only Pauly would call a $900 raise with the hammer, right? So, figuring him for something like JJ, I call (It occurs to me now that he might have had 77—folding would have left me with about $1900, enough to stay in it for a while; I should have folded, and I should have read that comment for what it was: a clear tell he had the hammer). Turn and river helped no-one, and Pauly and I both went out to the Hammer. Pauly had A8. As I told Mean Gene last night, he is my new hero.
I didn’t stick around because I had to get up early this morning, so I don’t know who won, but check out the links in our Gambling Room for other players’ updates on the game.
A word about Planet Poker, whose interface has some nice touches (the “Tourney Info” feature is one of the more useful ones around), but wins the booby prize for having made poor use of avatars. I was a slim blonde with a peekaboo blue sequined dress (how did they know?), Pauly was a short-haired brunette, The Fat Guy had a sassy little pony tail, and Hdouble won the “hottest redhead at the table” award. Also, a cackling woman’s laugh emanates from your computer speakers whenever anyone types “lol”, and—oddly—a flushing sound when you type “loo” (don’t ask me why people where typing “loo").
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